How to become a great mentor

I’ve been mentoring people for a while now.

Mostly I help people to write engaging and curiosity-sparking content, build a sustainable brand, and get into the habit of consistently producing high-quality content.

And that’s cool - I enjoy doing that. But mentoring people is waaaay more than that. You’re not only there to give them tasks and the know-how (even though that’s also important).

But you’re mainly there to listen and to adapt to your clients’ needs. You cannot treat every mentoring client the same - everybody has different needs and ways of doing things.

Mentoring is about giving your clients full attention and honest care. And even though I mostly mentor about personal branding and writing, I also want to connect to my clients personally.

They trust me with their money, so I want to do my best.

Of course, it begins as a working relationship but it’s deeper than that. Whether I’m a client or a mentor, I want to care about the people I’m working with.

As cheesy as it sounds, there is a reason for every human who comes into your life. It’s not just a working relationship, this is an opportunity to connect and learn from each other.

So I want to respond to their needs and make this relationship as successful as possible (both personally and professionally). I don’t get it always right, but I know for sure that I’m trying my best.

Let me give you an example:

One of my clients is building his brand to mentor clients in the mental health and self-development niche.

Even though he was jumping on a lot of calls with people, people didn’t seem to be ready to commit to his mentoring program.

So one day on our weekly call he told me he was struggling with motivation. Mainly because he was comparing himself to others, and feeling guilt because he was spending so much time on building his brand without getting income.

And that’s TOUGH. I didn’t make ANY money for the first 10 months of building my brand.

But on top of that, he has a family to provide for (so I can only imagine how he must feel - at least I didn’t have people relying on me).

Honestly, I have so much respect for him - the courage and strength he has to build his business while working a side job to provide for his family is truly admirable. I learned a lot from him, I hope he realizes someday how amazing it is what he is doing.

And that’s the point - I learn so much from my clients - they come from different stages of life, many so much more successful and older than me.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re the only one who is mentoring - your clients are mentoring you as well. With each client, I’m learning more and more. Sometimes I learn so much that I can’t believe I get paid for it… 🫠 

I feel truly honored and blessed they give me the trust to guide them through the journey of building their online brand.

So anyway, when he told me of the lack of motivation we spent our call on identifying why he feels the dip and what we can do about it. I tried to listen as much as possible, relate, and point out how admirable it is what he's doing.

After our call, I received this message from him:

And this message made me see what mentoring is all about: Care.

Care about the people you work with.
Care about your audience.
Care about the people who read your posts.
Care about the people who reach out to you.
Care.Care.Care.

We are all here on earth trying our best to make things work for us - the more you train yourself to see the inside motivations of people the more you recognize we are all the same.

Nobody is better or worse, we are all together on this journey having the same inside motivations - to be content and happy.

And I want to help with that - I might be helping primarily with personal branding and writing, but I don’t want to lose track of what’s truly important:

To care about the success of my clients. And even though I don’t get it always right, that’s my goal.

So business is truly about care. Isn’t that beautiful? The best sales tactic is to care about the people you’re working with.

I get all the sales tactics, blablabla - they are fine. But in my experience - the more I care about the people the less I need sales tactics. Care is the best sales tactic out there. 🙂 

That realization fills me with joy because it means:

The best business strategy out there aligns with how you should treat people in life:

With love and care. <3

We are all in this together. Don’t fool yourself into believing you’re separate. We are all interconnected walking each other home (as Ram Dass would phrase it).

With love,

Heythem

P.S: landed in Ethiopia last week and have been meeting some amazing people. Planning on staying here for the next 2-3 months <3. BJJ is also great here!!